Rain is pouring down and the stream that runs under our neighbor’s house is not running. A bad sign. We will not get our walk this morning.

I watched a movie the other day about an eighty year old woman climbing what passes for a mountain in Scotland, Edie. In my world mountains have snow all year, not grass lining the path to the top. Edie trained for a few days and the view was gorgeous even if the story itself was a bit silly. Getting “fit” takes longer than a few days. She has too much luck. The professional climbers exhibit too much enthusiasm for an amateur climber, too little care. There are almost-villains. Spoiler: she makes it to the top and that’s the end. As if getting there were ever the end. It got me thinking about my dad.

My father, who died of cancer but lived with rheumatoid arthritis, crossed the Olympic Mountains many times. Some days he could barely get out of bed.

He hiked with my brother sometimes, but mostly he hiked alone. Sometimes we dropped him on one side of the Olympic Range and picked him up on the other. He didn’t like retracing his steps—better going over the top, west to east. Humptulips and Dosewallips. He asked me to go with him on the Hoh River Trail (49 km), but I never went. I suppose that has become a regret. My dad died at 65. Everything you carry in you carry back out, he used to say. He always warned that the climb back down was far more dangerous than the climb up.

That’s what is coming, I think, the harder climb down. And I think we will makes mistakes. We will take the wrong trails that look easier and lead us back into wilderness and get us lost because that is what always happens when our lives are disrupted and we are impatient to return to whatever we thought was home.

My dad also used to say that what matters is not what you take in your pack, it’s what you leave out.

Maybe there are things I can do without.

I think I could manage Hurricane Ridge. He talked about that one a lot. Hoh River takes three days, but Hurricane Ridge is just a couple of hours hiking. I could start easy and work up. There was a valley high up where he liked to camp. I am trying to remember the name. Hoh, Dosewallips, Elhwa, Ozette—the names alone.